Mr. Speaker, as a mother and grandmother, my heart goes out to the families who have been impacted by the tainted meat and E. coli breakout. I cannot imagine how those families must be feeling right now. I know that the same kind of angst, pain and fear they are feeling as a result of their family members being sick is shared by other Canadians, who are wondering if they ate meat from that particular plant and if they should dare buy beef today.
As Christine Lee said when she was interviewed by the CBC, she became very concerned. Indeed, the hospital confirmed to her on September 16 that her son Elijah had E. coli, but it was not until September 26 that a health warning was issued for steaks bought at a northeast Edmonton Costco supplied by the XL Foods facility in Brooks, Alberta. This information is pulled from the CBC article.
I find it unfathomable that any member of Parliament sitting in the House today or at any time could talk about fearmongering when we are actually dealing with the biggest meat recall in our history. We are talking about Canadian families whose loved ones are ill. We are trying to express tonight in this debate a great deal of concern and a call for immediate action. That is what we are looking for, not long-term bills about what we are going to do three to five years down the road, but what went wrong, why and what other steps will be taken to address this issue.
As a teacher, I talked for years about the importance of washing hands to prevent kids from getting colds or the flu. Whenever I fly, I always try to make sure that when I cough or sneeze, I do it the new way by coughing or sneezing into my elbow. Let us be honest that to hear a member of Parliament talking about the need to wash hands in this context makes one wonder if she is thinking that the workers at the plant failed to wash their hands and that is why there is an E. coli outbreak, or if she is saying that when we all wash our hands the E. coli will not affect us. I was left sitting here shaking my head at those kinds of statements being made in the House when the same member of Parliament talks at the same time about fearmongering. The fact that we have the largest recall of beef in our history is causing enough fear.
We are hoping that after tonight's debate the government will take immediate action to assure people that things are in hand. Instead, the agriculture minister is missing in action. I would like to ask him some very direct questions and I am sure I will get the opportunity to do that.
The member's comments about washing hands also bring to mind that we have an agriculture minister who, when making a speech at a dinner, made a lighthearted joke. One could say that he was just trying to lighten the mood because there must have been some tension at that dinner where beef was being served. It was very inappropriate for any minister to make those kinds of comments, saying he was eating beef and that because he was okay, everyone else must be okay too. That is just not acceptable.
I can say one thing: We as Canadians cannot accept E. coli in our food system and allow even one more person to get sick. Maybe I was living in a bit of a naive place, but I always believed that our food inspection was far superior to that of the Americans. I really believed that. However, what has come to light is that the Americans were on top of this E. coli outbreak long before we were. Now I am beginning to worry about the safety of our other foods and the kind of inspections we have.
The current government is very fond of talking about cutting red tape. If cutting red tape means not having enough inspectors to inspect food, hygiene and food health, and we now have to rely on companies to do their own inspection, I can assure members that Canadians do not want that kind of red tape reduction. That is not red tape but a matter of life and death.
We take this very seriously on this side of the House. We do not joke about it. We do not think this is fearmongering. This is a serious and grave concern and one that every parliamentarian should be engaged in and looking to find solutions for, instead of their trying to blame the opposition.
I keep hearing about the NDP apparently not going to support the bill, and yet I have heard our critic say over and over again, the bill has deficiencies but we in the NDP are going to help make it better and will support it being taken to report stage.
However, let us look at some of the policies of the government that could actually have contributed to the very unfortunate disaster that we have upon us.
One of the problems is that the Brooks plant in Alberta has very high staff turnover. When there is a very high staff turnover, things fall through the cracks.
I also learned that a very large number of workers at this particular plant are temporary foreign workers and that they are not on the road to citizenship. We really need these workers in Alberta. It is not as if we do not need meat and do not have an ongoing cattle industry. Yet because of the government's policies, we still bring these people in as temporary foreign workers. They do their short stint, work hard, and probably work for less money than other workers would be willing to do. We are not sure if they get the training.
Here I have some very serious questions. I wish the minister were here to answer them. I want to know what kind of training those temporary foreign workers are given before they work in these plants. I ask because we are talking about the life, safety and security of Canadians. I hear over and over again from the government side how the security of Canadians, the security of Canada, is its number one priority. If that is our number one priority, then I want to know what steps are taken to address that when new workers arrive. Remember that these workers come in and then leave. They come in and then we send them back. I want to know what kind of training they are given. I want to know what kind of health and safety inspections exist.
I also want to point out that there must be a certain amount of fear on the part of temporary foreign workers as to what they can report, because they must be worried about what that would mean, particularly as are brought here to work on a very temporary basis but are not considered good enough to live here. They know they will be sent back and replaced by a few hundred other workers who will fill their vacated positions.
I want to go back to the need for everyone to tone down the rhetoric and to look at what went wrong and implement solutions immediately so that Canadians can feel secure.
Those solutions will not be through cutting red tape, but through making sure the resources are there for appropriate food inspection. I am not prepared to accept food inspection at a lower level than that of our neighbours, the United States.
